The Internet started as a text-only medium of communication with largely bulletin boards and eventually e-mail. It progressed to be a more interactive experience and expanded into millions of homes, beyond college campuses and technology institutes. Websites started including pictures, navigation, music, and other enhancements to appeal to viewers. By the end of the 1990s, Internet sites still relied mostly on pictures and sleek navigation to appeal to users. As YouTube skyrocketed in popularity, the integration of online video to professional Websites started to become more common place. Now, offering a Website with only pictures is like running a rental store with only silent movies; Web users and customers expect a more interactive experience, complete with videos of products, services, or people. Websites that include videos offer users more detailed information about products and services, give businesses an opportunity to control the way information is delivered, and increase the conversion rate of visitors to customers.

Captivate Your Audience and Capture Your Customer

One of the great advantages as a Web user to Websites with videos is the ability to see in more detail what one is buying before the purchase, or to learn more about a service before inquiring further. Before purchasing a movie ticket, viewers usually watch a trailer for the movie, showing them more about what they are paying to see. With an apartment complex or hotel, rather than just see lifeless still photos, videos allow people to see the community closer to the way they would actually see it if they were to visit in person, though inevitably somewhat idealized. Seeing people enjoying amenities through a web video is a lot more interesting than seeing pictures, though, because pictures are less capable of capturing the human element or evoking emotion. Another great benefit is seeing a product demonstration video about how a technology product actually works, step by step, so that the potential customer can see how easy it is to use, allaying fears about it being overly complicated or too technical to setup properly. A long, detailed text page with a few pictures about how the product works is a nice addition to video, but not a substitute. Unlike a site with just numerous navigational sections, pictures, and text, a video allows a business to control the way information is given to potential customers.

Better Control of Your Message

On an old Website, the only way to display information was in a logical fashion where the business hopes that visitors click around the site in some sort of sequential order. If a person clicks through the pricing section first, without seeing what the product does, or what services are offered, they may just close the site and go elsewhere. But if they have a video they can see on the home page about what a great product or service the business is offering, they will be less surprised when they see the price. Whereas with a standard Website, the visitor clicks around at will without having much direction, a prominent video on the home page gives them a starting point before looking for more information. It allows the business to control the way the information in the web video is displayed and how it is presented, giving back some control while at the same time giving the site visitor a lot more information that is helpful for their decision-making process as well, which makes them more likely to purchase a product or service from the business.

Improve Sales Conversions

While tracking of such statistics across a broad swath of the Internet is difficult, numerous sites have attested to Web videos converting visitors to clients at a much greater rate than sites with just text and pictures. One of the more well-published studies, by FindLaw (LawyerMarketing.com), indicated that visitors go to an average of 4.8 Websites to find an attorney, but when lawyers added video to their sites, the number dropped to 1.8. In other words, the presence of online video made visitors likely to select a lawyer much more quickly. The Discovery Channel Store did an independent study when the company added video to their e-commerce store and experienced an increase of 78% in sales when customers viewed the product video. A company called iAds integrated their video ads for Tandberg Video Systems, which had a conversion rate of 0.75 to 1.00 percent, but with videos the conversion increased to between 1.5 and 3.0 percent. Numerous such stories are available and there is no doubt that offering video on Websites helps businesses compete more effectively and gain more customers.

With the advance in broadband Internet connections and the high penetration such technology has seen in recent years, most customers have access either at home or at work to high-speed Internet, allowing them to view online videos that give them more information about products and services, help them make decisions with greater confidence, and give businesses greater tools to demonstrate what they offer. In the years to come, companies from all industries and across the Internet will be adding videos to compete more effectively and market themselves with greater confidence. The companies that adopt last will be losing business to companies that have cutting edge videos and quality products or services to offer. Ultimately, the reputation of a company and the products or services they offer will still remain the long-term key to success, but marketing remains an important part of any company’s ability to attract new customers. The professionalism and class of the videos offered online will be the key to competing effectively for years to come.

The success of any business depends on maintaining smooth uninterrupted enterprise operations. In this digital age, it is essential that businesses have IT (information technology) services that will keep their network operational and intact with minimal down time. Because business computer systems and networks are always evolving it is imperative to work with the right IT company to maintain and preserve your companies’ data. This involves a number of steps in order to prevent loss of data due to disasters such as floods, fires, theft, power failure, equipment failure, etc. To ensure the success of your company, below you will find a list of some of the most important IT services for businesses.

Network backup systems are vital in order for a business to keep their data safe. Hiring an IT services company (that offers network support) will help ensure data is never lost or corrupted. With a network backup system in place, you can safely upload your client information, financial records and files via the Internet to a secure off site location where data cannot be harmed. By doing so, your data is safe from storms, fire, unauthorized intrusions, floods, viruses, and hardware malfunctions. As well, backups can be monitored 24/7 to ensure data availability in case of an emergency.

Remote monitoring is a very beneficial service for any size business that enables 24/7 monitoring of your computer network. While this is an effective method used to monitor systems for malicious bugs, intrusions, glitches, and emergencies, it’s also very cost effective. Proactively monitoring, managing, and maintaining your computer network remotely means problems are detected immediately and fixed without the need to have a technician physically come to the business location. Having a constant ‘guard’ for the system and network will help ensure uninterrupted network operation thereby reducing worker downtime. Nothing can be as frustrating as having an office full of workers who can’t work!

It is critical for every business to have effective email and spam protection as this step helps protect against potentially disastrous threats. A technician will help establish an email security and archiving system that will actively secure your email by stopping spam, viruses, worms, and other email-borne malware before reaching the inbox. Furthermore it allows you to preserve and access emails more easily and at the same time allows for the archiving of all inbound and outbound emails online for compliance and backup. There is also continual monitoring of email activity to ensure critical emails are being received and delivered.

With an IT company offering offsite back up disaster recovery solutions, businesses will ensure no data is lost should there be a disaster affecting the computing systems. Such a back up system makes data accessible 24/7 thereby ensuring that said data is immediately recoverable if there is an event such as power failure. High tech facilities house servers safely, protecting them from any unauthorized access and physically potential disasters such as humidity, fire, temperature extremes, dust, and floods. These storage facilities help to protect business systems and data, ensuring that your company information is protected.

A quality IT plan ensures complete backup services, daily checks on your backup, security monitoring, and effective disaster recovery solutions. The loss of client records or financial information could very well be the end of many companies. Unfortunately many companies also need to be protected from the malicious activity of competitors and hackers. Compiled with the waste of money on potential downtime, having an effective IT plan is a necessity for the success of any business.

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” Albert Einstein. When it comes to sharing business content with your online communities, offering information to others that is of value will ultimately make your business successful.

There are many reasons why being a part of online communities contributes greatly to the success of your business.

Universal exposure: As part of an online community, you are able to reach people around the world and it is as though you are all in a room together, interacting on issues that are important and interesting to all of you. It is incredible that you are now capable (through social media) of reaching numerous people at once from one location. This allows you not only to market your business easily and successfully but also lets you do a large number of other things connected with your business. Remember that connecting with your online communities does not mean that you should be giving those people a hard sell. You should be sharing valuable information with them. You are educating the other people in your online communities about what you do and what you offer. You are allowing them to get to know you and your business.

Learning from others: As a member of an online community, you have the opportunity to learn new ways to market your business from other marketers. You should take advantage as much as possible of the expertise of other people who are members of your online communities and put their principles into practice, where appropriate.

Strategic partnerships: You will have many opportunities to form strategic partnerships with other members of your online communities. There will be a lot of synergies between you and others and if you find that your skills and expertise compliment those of people in your online communities, you should approach them and see how you can work together most effectively. Of course, you cannot form business partnerships with people unless you get to know them and they get to know you. Nobody will partner with another person unless they trust them and find them to be credible.

Make the most of your online communities: Remember that you need to market yourself and your business through your online communities. Make sure that your online profile is complete, which means that you need to include more details about yourself than your business. You should include a statement about your business but a more comprehensive discussion about your business offerings will occur after you have posted and syndicated your content.

Choose your online communities wisely: It is important to choose your online communities based on the members with whom you want to interact. It is not enough to choose an online community based solely on a demographic, ie, a geographic location or an age group. You should be very selective about your communities and make sure that the other members in your online communities have enough in common with you and your business and are really excited about interacting with you online.

Build your online relationships: It is very important to continue to develop relationships with those people with whom you interact online. A good way to do this is by continually sharing information with them that you feel they will find valuable and that will help them in some way. Not only will your online connections want to interact with you but they will also speak favorably about you to others online. The more comfortable and the closer your relationships with them become, the more opportunities you will eventually have of selling them your products and/or services. Make sure that you make the effort to not only establish the relationships but also make sure that you maintain them for the long term.

Conclusion

Being a member of online communities for business and continually establishing and maintaining online relationships is critical to the success of your business. With the extreme popularity of social media, many people are excited about interacting and developing relationships with others whom they feel they can trust and who they consider experts in their industry. At the heart of your success is the human element. Once people really get to know you and you get to know them, they will want what you are offering and will gladly tell others about what you are offering too.